Sara Deniz Akant

Chandler

those Chandler eyes tho bro
how can we scuba D a force
to make her
scuba O

I am Chand and not adored

what she may
she might not know

I tick tick when I think how quick
to make them quit of me
I do it badly—do again
the same they want to see

they want to see my pill my pill
my pill that melt my hand
I chant, I chant

those Chandler eyes tho bro

Dear Chand

this prophecy is about you
it takes a form
and uses it to build another in your chest

the land in question
is still a stranger
a string of shattered family attempts—

yes. a name cannot tell you
what something is
but that it is connected in a web
collected into minutes
of organized chants :

have you met the neighbors.
they have a Chandler daughter.
they have a charcharcharmander !

Chand for just three minutes of watching her
herself

Chandler

the set of ancient eyes she used for spying on herself
were blended in and blotted out, her face all fully
fucked.

with syllables, that is, that were never
fully formed.

that cannot travel mouth, the endless child
seeing, seeing smelling candies, singing to the car-pool,
a voice of rain and sand.

of this and that she’s none.

a mouth
is a pushed-into
parti-colored crown, a cage over the throat
that connects into the head. which connects into
the arms, into the holes
between her legs. in this hot lava
of imagined words

they enjoyed her smile.

she forgot even their faces
which were somehow not the same.

Sara Deniz Akant

Sara Deniz Akant is a Brooklyn-based educator, poet and performer. She is the author of Babette, selected by Maggie Nelson for the Rescue Press Black Box Poetry Prize, as well as Parades (Omnidawn, 2014), and Latronic Strag (Persistent Editions, 2015). She studies writing at the CUNY Grad Center and teaches at Medgar Evers College. Her work has appeared most recently in The Brooklyn Rail, The Bennington Review, jubilat, and Lana Turner.